Chris Zarraga

Director, Schools North East

Chris is the Director of School North East.  He has been part of the Schools North East team since its operational inception in 2008 and in 2019 he was appointed Director.  Chris works with senior leaders across the North East and nationally in the education and charity sectors, to represent the voice of North East schools.  A central part of his work is to lobby politicians,  policy makers, and the media to put a strong ‘regional accent’ on the education debate, so that North East schools are not left behind when it comes to education policy.

Under Chris, Schools North East launched the ‘Manifesto for North East Education’.  The manifesto sets out the perennial challenges that impact educational opportunities in the North East and the principles needed to inform any educational policy wanting to address them.

Chris works with hundreds of schools across the North East and various organisations including Ofsted, the DfE, the North East’s universities, Local Authorities and various regional/ national businesses. Prior to joining Schools North East, he led a £1.4 million culture change project in education across the North East for the Treasury and DfE and was responsible for setting up a multi-million pound Enterprise Education Network. 

Chris sits on various advisory boards including the NHS Integrated Care Boards, various Combined Authority advisory boards, and was a member of the DfE’s Opportunity North East strategic board. He has also sat on various boards for North East Universities. As well as being a Director of two North East multi academy trusts, Chris has been Chair of a 3 school Trust, Vice Chair of a large maintained secondary school and Vice Chair of a primary foundation school. 

In a variety of roles from Regional Manager to Chief Executive to Board member, Chris has led large scale change management projects in education and has over 20 years’ experience of strategic management, consultancy, and client development experience at a ‘Big Four’ firm and various financial institutions.

Chris holds an MBA with distinction from Durham University Business School.